Why We Should Focus More on Clouds, Trees and Streams

Claire Whitely

No one, probably, has ever much doubted that these things are nice. Clouds, trees and streams represent nature in its most gentle, tranquil guise.1. tranquil： 安宁的，平静的；guise： 外表，外貌。Their appeal is instinctive.2. appeal： 吸引力，感染力；instinctive：天生的，本能的。But we take them for granted. They form a pleasant background to other things: out of the plane window, we catch sight of a sea of3. a sea of： 大量的。clouds.Truly lovely—for a moment. Then the cabin crew come around with the sandwiches and you’ve found some episodes ofMad Menyou’d missed.4. cabin crew： 机舱工作人员；Mad Men： 美剧《广告狂人》，故事背景设定在上世纪60年代的纽约，大胆地描述了美国广告业黄金时代残酷的商业竞争。Your cousin’s wedding reception was in a garden of old oak trees, they were stunning5. wedding reception： 婚宴；oak tree：橡树；stunning： 极好的。—but that was two years ago, and you may not have looked properly at a tree since. There was that stream you used to love playing in as a child, damming up the flow till the water eventually protested and swept away your rocks.6. 这里有你在孩提时代就喜欢嬉戏其中的溪流，你曾经堆起小石块挡住水流，直到河水最后把它们冲垮。dam up： 筑坝拦水，挡住；protest： 抗议；sweep away： 一扫而空。There must,theoretically, still be lots of streams. But the adult world is often decidedly stream-free.

The problem is a lack of encouragement to focus on these natural elements. In a busy and remorselessly7. remorselessly： 冷酷地。practical age, there are few explanations around as to what the point of such focus might be. And yet spending moments of close observation with clouds, trees and streams may in fact play a minor but important supporting role in the pursuit of a balanced and more or less sane life.8. supporting role： 配角，次要角色；sane： 健全的，理智的。

或许这是我们童年里才会出现的场景：我们踏着小溪，试图搭起小石挡住湍流；我们仰望白云，思考长大以后的日子；我们偷偷爬上高枝，抚摩它粗糙而坚韧的老树皮……随着一天天长大和成熟，我们与社会越来越近，却离自然越来越远。自然带给我们很多高贵的品质，我们却将自然的赋予视为理所应当。它静静陪伴我们，我们却无意欣赏。不如从今天起，给自己几分钟，尽享自然的馈赠吧！

Clouds

We are preoccupied with9. be preoccupied with： 专注于。ourselves in unhelpful ways. The clouds,however, are usefully indifferent to all our concerns. They don’t care about fashion. They are uninterested in gossip. They are not responsive to our status or lack of it.

We are always close to these vast, quiet things. A grey tuft detaches itself in the break up of a great continental bank of cloud.10. 一簇灰色的云从巨大的云团中分离出来。tuft： 一丛，一簇；detach： 分离，分开；bank： （雪、云等）堆。It inches its way across the sky, slowly losing de finition.11. inch： v. 缓慢移动，渐进；de finition：（线条、轮廓等）清晰。Ten minutes later it is barely recognisable. And shortly after that, it merges with12. merge with： 融入，与……结合。another cloud and its brief individual career is over. Islands of clouds form, make chains, nations, empires, then drift and dissolve—like a peaceful, silent, painless repetition of the turbulent mayhem of human history.13. 成片的云朵变换着组合，形成链条、国家乃至帝国，然后飘走消散，就如同人类历史上的动荡与混乱，寂静无声且不带有任何苦痛地反复更替着。turbulent： 混乱的，动荡不安的；mayhem： 极混乱的状态。

There is a constant drama above our heads: collisions, fractures,swirls, separations…14. collision： 碰撞，冲突；fracture： 破裂；swirl： 纷乱。Human life is no less active, but it can mean a moment of relief from our particular involvements to look up and be returned to a broader perspective, from where the agitations of the present moment will seem less signi ficant15. no less： 仍然；involvement： 混乱，复杂；agitation： 烦乱，焦虑。—as they will for us too with time (even if we are incapable of holding on to this idea on most of the occasions we need it). It will all pass, even the current nastiness and enmities, like the clouds that seemed so fixed and heavy but an hour ago—and yet have now all moved on, leaving behind only two or three of their cohorts, apologetic and timid before the victorious sun, like the cowed remnants of a scattered army.16. 一切都会过去，即使是当前的污秽和怨恨也都会消散。就像云朵在一个小时前还静静地密布于天际，现在却也早已飘散。在太阳那胜利者般的照耀下，剩下的只有两三朵谦卑而又羞怯的云，就像受到威胁的四散的溃军一样。nastiness： 肮脏，污秽；enmity： 仇恨，怨恨；cohort： 一组，一群；timid： 羞怯的；cowed： 被恐吓的，被威胁的；remnant： 残存者；scattered： 分散的。

Trees

They are an image of patience, and resolution. Their gnarled, worn barks speak of the hundreds of seasons they have endured.17. gnarled： [木]粗糙的，多瘤的；bark： 树皮。They have bent and lost branches in November winds, they have been gnawed at by worms and beetles across the airless days of July, they have been knocked and hacked at by farmers and gardeners.18. gnaw at： 啃，咬；hack： 砍，劈。But they endure—as we might better learn to do through their examples. It’s an unhelpful prejudice of the Western mind to think of philosophy as emanating only from books rather than, as the Eastern tradition more wisely points out, from the volumes of nature as well.19. 西方思想存在无益的偏见，认为哲学只能从书本中获得，而不像东方文化那样更智慧地指出哲学也可以从大量的自然现象中获得。prejudice： 偏见；emanate from： 出自，源于；volumes of： 大量的。

Oak trees are an image of ordered complexity: the roots patiently draw nutrients from the soil, the capillaries of their trunks send water twenty- five metres upwards,20. capillary： 毛细血管；trunk： 树干。each branch takes enough but not too much for the needs of its own leaves, each leaf contributes to the maintenance of the whole. The trees sit out rainy days without complaint, adjusting themselves to the slow shift of the seasons—showing no ill-temper in a storm, no desire to wander, with their many slender fingers deep in the clammy soil,21. wander： 游荡，漫步；slender：细长的；clammy： 湿黏的。metres from their central stems and far from the tallest leaves which hold rainwater in some 40,000 of their little palms.

The trees are an education in the cycle of life as well. All those leaves, resplendent22. resplendent： 光辉的，华丽的。in the summer sun, will be gone by the end of November. Human life is as unstoppable, but it may be through the abstract example of trees that we can come to accept the lesson with greater ease. Our own very disturbing experiences of change are recast23. recast： 重铸，重做。in more universal terms. Our thinning hair, facial lines and the stiffening of our skin can be recast as a melancholy necessity rather than an unreasonable catastrophe.24. 我们的头发变得稀少，面部变得松弛，皮肤变得僵硬，这些都只是令人伤感的必然，而并非不合常理的灾难。stiffening：硬化；melancholy： 令人伤感的；catastrophe： 大灾难。

Streams

Streams are always communicating: whispering, exclaiming,arguing (with a rock or twig), con fiding (in a quiet vortex), dozing (in midsummer) or shouting (after a heavy shower).25. exclaim： 叫喊；twig： 嫩枝；vortex： 漩涡；doze： 打瞌睡。

Like fires, they provide an ideal object of contemplation26. contemplation： 沉思，冥想。for us when we are trying to think. Their constant activity enlivens27. enliven： 使有生气，使活跃。our imaginations.They don’t stare blankly back at us, like pieces of paper on a desk. They distract our minds just enough that the good ideas, the ones that hate to be asked directly to emerge, can feel relieved of pressure and slip out, while we’re following water as it rises gracefully to meet with the objections of a group of awkward rocks just below the surface.28. 当我们心随水流，看它优雅地高涨起来，冲向水面下阻碍它的顽石时，它（溪流）刚好分散了我们的注意力，让我们头脑中那些不愿直接出现的好点子冲破压力，悄然浮现。Streams warn us too that we must be careful to hold on to those thoughts, for our minds are no less fugitive than they are: we get an insight, but in a moment, it will be gone, like a twig in the current,29. fugitive： 无常的，易变的；current： 涌流。unless we grab it at once.

We should not leave the encounter with clouds, trees or streams to chance30. leave sth. to chance： 顺其自然，任凭命运。alone. We would ideally have collective routines and events around them to edge31. edge： v. 使缓慢移动。us into good habits. Perhaps for a minute before lunch, we would ritually32. ritually： 仪式上地。pause and look at the clouds—just as Christians have been encouraged to say a quick prayer of thanksgiving on sitting down to dinner. No week should be counted complete if it does not include three minutes given over to a tree. If streams are hard to come by, a picture of them should be a priority of interior decoration and each of us should make a point of stopping before a “stream-icon” to reacquaint ourselves with its benign and bene ficial moral.33. interior decoration： 室内装潢；reacquaint： 重新认识；benign：温和的，和善的；moral： 寓意。

We too easily lose touch with the better and saner aspects of ourselves.Somewhere inside us, we have the potential for calm and reason,tenderness and thoughtfulness. Clouds, trees and streams are on hand to help…